


milk and two sugars

by vvelna



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, First Meetings, M/M, Mistaken Identity, there's a gun but nobody gets hurt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 04:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16339682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vvelna/pseuds/vvelna
Summary: Dan goes to a coffee shop for a job interview. Things don’t go as planned.





	milk and two sugars

**Author's Note:**

> this is a bingo fic for the prompts "coffeeshop" and "mistaken identity"

The only reason Dan was even up at 6am was that he’d somehow managed to get a job interview. It was at a local indie coffee shop that apparently opened at the crack of dawn. The lights were on, windows glowing in the dreary autumn morning fog. He could only see two people inside—a middle-aged man sitting at a table with a newspaper and a porcelain mug, and a young woman wiping down tables with a rag.  
  
He pushed open the door and was greeted by the glorious warmth of the indoor heating and the smell of freshly roasted coffee. The woman looked up and smiled; the man remained absorbed in his paper.  
  
“Dan, right?” she said, tossing the rag over her shoulder and approaching him with her hand extended.  
  
He took it briefly in his. “Um, yeah. I’m here for an interview?”  
  
“Rita. I’m the owner.”  
  
“Oh, nice to meet you,” he said, probably too late.  
  
“How about you sit down at that table in the corner? I’ll run to the back and grab my copy of your CV.”  
  
Dan glanced at the table and then at the man sitting only a few tables over. Rita followed his gaze.  
  
“Don’t worry about Eric. He’s deaf. Promise he won’t be eavesdropping.”  
  
Dan nodded and made his way to the table, while Rita disappeared behind the counter. Eric looked up as he passed and they exchanged polite smiles. Dan had a feeling Eric wasn’t interested in socializing, if he was the kind of guy who goes to an empty coffee shop before the sun rises to sit alone. That was fine with Dan.  
  
He squeezed into one of the tiny chairs and bumped his knees on the underside of the tiny table. He wished he had something to do with his hands while he waited. He glanced enviously at Eric as he raised his mug to his lips. Taking his phone out seemed unprofessional.  
  
After sitting there for what felt like way longer than necessary for Rita to “run to the back,” he did pull his phone out of his pocket. He estimated it was around 6:05 at the latest when she’d left him, and now it was 6:25. How did it take twenty minutes to grab a CV? Maybe she had misplaced it? Or maybe she’d read over it again and realized Dan wasn’t worth hiring. Or he’d made a terrible first impression, and she was hiding in the back until he got the hint and left.  
  
There was a clink to his right and Dan turned to see Eric folding up his paper and laying it beside his empty mug. He checked his watch, sighed, and stood up.  
  
“Rita?” he called.  
  
No response.  
  
“Rita, I’m leaving. See you tomorrow.”  
  
He nodded at Dan and walked out, leaving the empty mug and neatly folded paper on the table. Dan sat in silence in the empty shop.  
  
When Rita emerged from the back a few minutes later, she wasn’t alone. A man was walking closely behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other behind her back. At the same time, another man walked in the front door. They were both dressed in all black with ski masks over their faces. Dan had a feeling this wasn’t a fashion statement.  
  
He met Rita’s eyes. She seemed oddly calm.  
  
“Don’t move! Stay right where you are!” said the man behind her.  
  
The man who’d come in the door was shorter than the one behind Rita, almost comically so, like they’d planned it that way.  
  
Dan was frozen in his seat, fear helping him comply with the tall man’s instructions. But behind the panic fuzzing up his brain, he was wondering who the fuck tries to rob an indie coffee shop with no one in it at the beginning of the day? Were they just adrenaline junkies who did it for the thrill rather than the money? Maybe they were sadistic killers and planned to tie him and Rita up in the back and torture them to death. He was just trying to land a minimum wage job. He didn’t deserve this.  
  
“That him?” asked the short man, nodding toward Dan.  
  
Oh fucking fuck, where they there for _him,_ specifically? He’d thought he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
“Beanpole in tights and a shit haircut? Yeah, it’s gotta be.”  
  
Apparently his adversaries didn’t approve of skinny jeans and emo fringes. He might have found that funnier if he wasn’t about to die.  
  
“Looks a bit toastier, though, don’t he?” said the short man, looking at Dan with a quizzical expression.  
  
“So he sat in the sun a bit. Still say it’s him.”  
  
The tall man pushed Rita forward, and Dan realized that he was holding a gun to her back. The room suddenly felt unspeakably cold; his hands lay like bricks of ice in his lap, and his neck was too stiff to turn.  
  
“Alright, Phil,” said the tall man with the gun. “I need you to cooperate or this little lady’s gonna get hurt.”  
  
Wait. Who the fuck was Phil?  
  
Rita frowned and her eyes widened, gears no doubt whirring in her head just like they were in Dan’s.  
  
He tried to find his voice. “Sorry, um. I’m not—I’m—My name is Dan.”  
  
Both men spoke at the same time.  
  
“Who said you could talk?” said the short man.  
  
“Your name is _what?_ ” said the tall.  
  
“Sorry. It’s Dan. I’m Dan. Dan Howell. I don’t know who Phil is, but I’ve—I’ve got my I.D. in my pocket…”  
  
The men and Rita just stared at him. He wasn’t sure who to look at or what to do.  
  
“Go check,” said the tall man.  
  
The short man approached him.

“Where is it?”  
  
“What?” He stared blankly at the man.  
  
“Your I.D., jackass. Where is it?”  
  
“My wallet. In my coat pocket.”  
  
The short man instructed him to slowly take his wallet out.  
  
“Don’t be a hero,” said the tall man, as if Dan had any intention of trying, or any means by which to do so squirreled away in his pocket.  
  
The short man snatched the wallet out of his hand and opened it.  
  
“Motherfucker.”  
  
“What? What?”  
  
“It’s not him. It’s not Phil Lester.”

“Fucking hell. He’s supposed to be at this coffee shop every Friday morning.”  
  
“I could’ve told you that’s not him,” said Rita. Dan was both impressed and concerned by how unbothered she was. Did this kind of thing happen to her a lot? Was owning a coffee shop a more dangerous business than he thought?  
  
“Sorry, who’s this Phil guy?” he asked.  
  
“He’s a regular,” Rita replied, “and—”  
  
“The heir to the bloody Lester family fortune. We were gonna get 5 mil each for his safe return.”  
  
Rita snorted. “Yeah, sure.” She met Dan’s eyes. “Don’t worry, love. The gun’s fake. Knew the second I saw it.”  
  
“Yeah?” snarled the tall man. “You want me to show you how fake it is?”  
  
“You want me to stab you with the bread knife in my apron pocket? Fuck off.”  
  
The tall man let her go. The four of them exchanged glances, all unsure of how to proceed.  
  
Then the door swung open and a man stepped inside.  
  
Dan knew as soon as he saw him that he was Phil. He was tall and clad in a heavy coat and black skinny jeans, with a black fringe falling across his forehead. Other than the height and some similar stylistic choices, they really didn’t look _that_ alike.

Another standoff. Everyone was looking at Phil, whose eyes darted from face to face.

“Hi?” he said.

“Phil, get out!” said Rita, sounding fearful for the first time.

Phil kept standing right inside the doorway, paralyzed like a deer in the headlights.

The men advanced on Phil. Now that the attention was off him, Dan fumbled for his phone, shaky fingers attempting to dial 999.

He needn’t have bothered, because suddenly the door was swinging open again, and three police officers nearly knocked Phil off his feet in their haste to enter the building. There was a flurry of movement and lots of shouting. A couple tables were knocked over. The commotion ended with the two would-be kidnappers lying facedown on the floor, each with an officer kneeling at their side. Phil was sitting on the floor with his back to the wall, bug-eyed and open-mouthed, and Rita was crouched beside him. Only Dan was exactly where he’d started. Same chair, same table. Still unemployed.

About twenty minutes later, he was sitting next to Phil in a row of hard plastic chairs, as they waited for their turn to be interviewed by the police. Rita came down the hall and sunk into the chair beside Phil, then leaned over him to speak to Dan.

“I think they want to spin it so I’m some kind of accomplice, so make sure you put in a good word.”

“They wouldn’t really do that, would they?” said Phil, grabbing onto her arm. “You’d never!”

She laughed and patted his knee. “I’ll be fine, Phil. As long as Dan isn’t secretly in cahoots with those oafs.”

Phil cast an accusatory glance his way.

“Hey!” Dan held up his hands. “I could’ve been kidnapped!”

Phil and Rita both laughed. Phil covered his mouth with his hands and Dan caught himself staring.

Rita stood up. “Well, I was told I’m free to go for now. Phil, I’ll call you later. And Dan...We’ll see about rescheduling that interview, yeah?”

Dan nodded. Right—that’s why he’d been in the coffee shop. A job.

“You should buy Eric a gift, too,” she called over her shoulder right before disappearing around a corner. “He came back and saw what was happening through the window.”

Bless him. Dan swore if he got the job—or any job—he’d pay for Eric’s coffee for life.

Phil tapped him on the shoulder.

“Dan? I, uh, know we didn’t meet under the best circumstances—”  
  
His eyes were so blue, ringed with pale lashes. His gaze was intense.  
  
“—but after all this is over, do you want to grab a coffee? My treat.”  
  
Dan sat silently for a moment, processing what Phil had said. Was he asking him out on a date? A friend-date? A “you almost got kidnapped because of me, so let me buy you a coffee” date? An “I am rich enough to be kidnapped for ransom and you are clearly a coffee shop peasant, so allow me to purchase you a beverage” date?  
  
“Sorry, that was probably really insensitive of me to ask after what happened—”

Did Dan really care what the reason was?  
  
“Okay. Let’s get coffee. Starbucks.”

Phil’s smile answered his question.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!
> 
>  
> 
> [ reblog/like on tumblr ](https://velvetnautilus.tumblr.com/private/179192542580/tumblr_pgtgj5XIDb1wm9q5f)


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